Outpatient rehabilitation for an older couple in a repopulated village 10 years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster:An embedded case study

Abstract

Background Little information is available on the role of community-based rehabilitation after a nuclear disaster. Here, we report the case of an older couple living in an area repopulated after the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011 who received outpatient rehabilitation. Case presentation An 84-year-old woman underwent total hip arthroplasty (THA) after she fell and sustained a trochanteric fracture while caring for her husband with Alzheimer's disease. The 85-year-old husband experienced worsening behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) following his wife's hospitalization. The couple received rehabilitation at an outpatient facility in a nearby village using a shuttle service. The woman’s postoperative anxiety was relieved and her physical function improved. Moreover, the husband's BPSD symptoms decreased. Conclusion A wife and husband showed improvement in physical function after THA and alleviation of BPSD, respectively, following rehabilitation. In post-disaster, resource-scarce areas, older adults may benefit from utilizing the outpatient rehabilitation services available in the surrounding area.

Linking affected community and academic knowledge: community-based research for the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake

“…Globally, the importance of and need for community-based research is increasingly recognized in the context of disasters such as Iraq con ict [6], landslides [7], oods [8], hurricanes [9][10][11], and bush res [12,13]. By contrast, in the Japanese context, awareness of the importance of CBPR has increased since the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake [14,15] and has been reported in relation to the Kumamoto earthquake [16] and oods [17] (Fig. 1A).…”